Ben Davis

Real Champions of Freedom Are in Every Age Hostile to Pornography

“The defense of our historic American system of liberty under law requires then that we wage war against pornography, because pornography is a major enemy to liberty. The opponents of pornography are therefore no threat to liberty. Rather, they are its friends and defenders. Under the cloak and name of liberty, the pornographers are out to destroy liberty. The real champions of liberty are in every age hostile to pornography.”

Discussions of censorship rarely occur without someone citing the old adage, “I might disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.” While it is commendable to champion the rights of others, even those with opposing views, it shouldn’t be assumed that there should be absolutely no limitations on what individuals can express in the public arena.
Though some may initially consider this an infringement on the basic principle of freedom of speech, it is worth noting that even the most ardent Libertarian free-speech advocates reject the idea that people should be able to say absolutely anything they want to without consequence. Take, for instance, defamation laws that prevent libel, or copyright legislation that prohibit the publishing of stolen or plagiarised content.
Consequently, we shouldn’t imagine that all expression is protected as “free speech.” Speech can violate an individual’s right not to be robbed. Victims of libel, defamation, or slander suffer from a loss of reputation, potentially leading to financial damages, while victims of plagiarism are robbed of the credit or financial benefits of stolen labor. As such, justice should always demand restitution for the wronged from the hand of the wrong-doer.
This is not to say such laws are designed merely to infringe on liberty, but rather, they are to protect the liberty and rights of all potential victims.
Herein lies the distinction between liberty and anarchy: Liberty is restrained by law, while anarchy is inherently lawless. Liberty is the freedom to do what is good unhindered, anarchy is to live without the restraints of immediate social or legal penalties for doing bad.
Now, someone might say, isn’t this just the “cancel-everything-I hate” mindset infecting today’s culture? No, our point of contention lies not in whether bad things ought to be penalised, but how we determine what things ought to be considered “bad” and deserving of punishment. It’s not whether, but which. Not whether expression is restricted, but which expression will be restricted and on what basis?
Unless we’re going to embrace anarchy, we all draw the line somewhere. But why do we draw it where we do? Is it just reputation-theft, or should other expressions detrimental to society also be prohibited and censored? What about other immoral expressions, such as pornography?
This issue came up recently in Australia after a major store decided to remove a graphic children’s sex education book from its shelves following online criticism. While many applauded the move, some accused the book’s critics of violating freedom of expression by demanding its removal.
One Libertarian MP referred to those opposing the book’s contents as “book burners,” accusing them of “spitting in the face of parental rights.”
“Parents decide what is appropriate for their children, not the Government, not activists,” he argued.
But is this the approach we ought to take in our effort to secure freedom of expression? Do we, as some have argued, legally protect the bad to ensure overreaching governments don’t criminalise the good? Should our commitment to freedom of speech extend to pornographic content?
In his brilliant, short book, Law & Liberty, R.J. Rushdoony tackles this issue, answering the question of whether censoring pornographic material was a violation of rights. Though he speaks within an American context, the principles advocated are universal. The following excerpt is well-worth the read.
In Chapter 3, Rushdoony writes:
The issue of legislation governing pornography is becoming a major debate on the American scene. Shall legislation be further framed to abolish pornography, or does such legislation become censorship and a violation of civil rights?
Before analyzing the issue, let us examine the arguments for and against. In California, for example, the CLEAN Initiative, in 1966 Proposition 16 on the ballot, was one campaign among many to combat pornography. The advocates of CLEAN called attention to the fact that pornography in the United States has been a two billion dollar business annually. The publishers of pornography openly solicit manuscripts emphasizing perversions and hard-core pornography. Prosecution of avowedly pornographic works is difficult or impossible because existing laws are too weak. District attorneys do not initiate prosecutions, because the present law is inadequate to secure convictions. It is held that, to combat both pornography and its products, criminality and venereal disease, new laws are necessary.
Not so, the opponents argued. There is no necessary connection, it is claimed, between pornography and criminality, between pornography and immorality. Moreover, even if it were proven that such a connection exists, it would be wrong to pass laws against pornography, because such laws would introduce a greater evil, censorship and the loss of liberty. We are told that if pornography is the price we must pay for liberty, then we must be prepared to pay it. Liberty is too basic to the life of man to be sacrificed for any other factor. A lesser good cannot be sacrificed for the greater and basic good. We are against pornography, many argue, but we are even more emphatically against censorship and against any and every attack on liberty.
We can, as we assess these two conflicting positions, appreciate both a concern for moral standards and also a concern for liberty. The argument concerned with liberty is an important one, but it must be intelligently used. And what is liberty? Can it be limited, or is true liberty only unlimited liberty?
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Don’t Be Silenced by Their Name-Calling and False Accusations of “Hate”

We are called to be faithful to the truth. The enemies of God hate the truth. And they would have us think that to speak the truth is a hateful or dangerous thing. They want us to fear their labels. They want us to fear being called bad names. But whenever the temptation arises, let us not fall back or retreat, but let us pray with Nehemiah, “O God, strengthen my hands.”

Fear can be an instrument for good. The fear of falling to your death may prevent you from standing dangerously close to an edge. This is a healthy fear. But fear can also be used as a weapon to hinder good. The fear of social disapproval may prevent you from doing or saying the right thing. This is misplaced fear. It’s the sort of fear that shouldn’t control our lives, and yet today, many are consumed by it.
The fear of being called a bad name, slapped with a dangerous label, or accused of thinking a wrong thing largely dictates what people can and cannot say, despite how harmless, good, or true it may be.
But if we wish to gain any ground in the public square, we must overcome our misplaced fear of being called bad names. We will be called bad names. That’s a certainty. Jesus was called bad names, but that did not prevent him from doing what was right. He spoke the truth, regardless of opposition because his God-given mission was not defined, dictated, or directed by those attempting to silence him.
It’s no different today. Political and religious discourse is dominated by name-calling in an effort to shut down an opponent without having to grapple with his ideas. We don’t need a debate on “racism” or “hate” because everybody knows these things are wrong. Simply, mark your opponent as a hate-filled racist, and you don’t need to entertain his arguments. We’ve already agreed that both racism and hate are wrong.
But false accusations of “racism” or “hate” are oftentimes only used to silence those who are neither racist nor hateful. It’s only those who reject such labels that the false charge is designed to silence. An out-and-proud racist doesn’t care if you identify his racism. He may even help you do it. As such, it is only those who are not hate-filled racists who are likely to retreat when the accusation is raised.
And when it is raised, it’s not because our opponents care about such things, nor because they genuinely believe we are those things. It’s raised precisely because we are not those things, and they know that we care about not being those things.
In this sense, they’re wielding our own principles against us. They’re beating us with our own moral measuring stick. And falsely so! But what might happen if we stopped caring about their false allegations? What if we stopped caring how that dishonest and morally bankrupt segment of society viewed us? Suddenly, their false accusations would be stripped of all their silencing power.
In the book of Nehemiah, we’re told that the enemies of God wanted to prevent Nehemiah and his men from rebuilding Jerusalem’s defences. Their tactic was to weaken the hands of the workers by manufacturing misplaced fear through a false accusation.
They attempted to do this by accusing Nehemiah and his men of “intending to rebel,” and this, they argued, was why they were rebuilding the wall (Neh. 6:6). The false charge was brought against Nehemiah and his men in the hope that it would “frighten” them from their task. The enemies of God were hoping, through a false label, the workers’ hands would “drop from the work, and it would not be done.”
There is nothing new under the sun. Rather than fairly portraying their political opponents, they resorted to misrepresentations – such as accusing them of extremism, or domestic terrorism, to weaken their hands, thereby, stalling their God-given task.
The same tactic is still employed today. “I don’t want to be considered a bigot,” people think, “so, I best abandon any public defence of what’s now considered a controversial opinion.”
Had Nehemiah and his men caved to the fear of a false label their God-given work would have ended. But unlike many today, Nehemiah and his men did not listen to the false charge, nor did they allow any fear of the consequences hinder their task. Instead, Nehemiah prayed: “O God, strengthen my hands.”
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Don’t Be Silenced by Their Name-Calling and False Accusations of “Hate”

We are called to be faithful to the truth. The enemies of God hate the truth. And they would have us think that to speak the truth is a hateful or dangerous thing. They want us to fear their labels. They want us to fear being called bad names. But whenever the temptation arises, let us not fall back or retreat, but let us pray with Nehemiah, “O God, strengthen my hands.”

Fear can be an instrument for good. The fear of falling to your death may prevent you from standing dangerously close to an edge. This is a healthy fear. But fear can also be used as a weapon to hinder good. The fear of social disapproval may prevent you from doing or saying the right thing. This is misplaced fear. It’s the sort of fear that shouldn’t control our lives, and yet today, many are consumed by it.
The fear of being called a bad name, slapped with a dangerous label, or accused of thinking a wrong thing largely dictates what people can and cannot say, despite how harmless, good, or true it may be.
But if we wish to gain any ground in the public square, we must overcome our misplaced fear of being called bad names. We will be called bad names. That’s a certainty. Jesus was called bad names, but that did not prevent him from doing what was right. He spoke the truth, regardless of opposition because his God-given mission was not defined, dictated, or directed by those attempting to silence him.
It’s no different today. Political and religious discourse is dominated by name-calling in an effort to shut down an opponent without having to grapple with his ideas. We don’t need a debate on “racism” or “hate” because everybody knows these things are wrong. Simply, mark your opponent as a hate-filled racist, and you don’t need to entertain his arguments. We’ve already agreed that both racism and hate are wrong.
But false accusations of “racism” or “hate” are oftentimes only used to silence those who are neither racist nor hateful. It’s only those who reject such labels that the false charge is designed to silence. An out-and-proud racist doesn’t care if you identify his racism. He may even help you do it. As such, it is only those who are not hate-filled racists who are likely to retreat when the accusation is raised.
And when it is raised, it’s not because our opponents care about such things, nor because they genuinely believe we are those things. It’s raised precisely because we are not those things, and they know that we care about not being those things.
In this sense, they’re wielding our own principles against us. They’re beating us with our own moral measuring stick. And falsely so! But what might happen if we stopped caring about their false allegations? What if we stopped caring how that dishonest and morally bankrupt segment of society viewed us? Suddenly, their false accusations would be stripped of all their silencing power.
In the book of Nehemiah, we’re told that the enemies of God wanted to prevent Nehemiah and his men from rebuilding Jerusalem’s defences. Their tactic was to weaken the hands of the workers by manufacturing misplaced fear through a false accusation.
They attempted to do this by accusing Nehemiah and his men of “intending to rebel,” and this, they argued, was why they were rebuilding the wall (Neh. 6:6). The false charge was brought against Nehemiah and his men in the hope that it would “frighten” them from their task. The enemies of God were hoping, through a false label, the workers’ hands would “drop from the work, and it would not be done.”
There is nothing new under the sun. Rather than fairly portraying their political opponents, they resorted to misrepresentations – such as accusing them of extremism, or domestic terrorism, to weaken their hands, thereby, stalling their God-given task.
The same tactic is still employed today. “I don’t want to be considered a bigot,” people think, “so, I best abandon any public defence of what’s now considered a controversial opinion.”
Had Nehemiah and his men caved to the fear of a false label their God-given work would have ended. But unlike many today, Nehemiah and his men did not listen to the false charge, nor did they allow any fear of the consequences hinder their task. Instead, Nehemiah prayed: “O God, strengthen my hands.”
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Christ’s Kingdom Advances With the Sword, but Not That Sword

There are to be certain characteristics of those within Christ’s Kingdom, and those characteristics stand in stark contrast to the way the world operates in its rebellion against God. Unlike the kingdoms of this world, Christ’s Kingdom does not advance through top-down enforcement, but bottom-up servitude. Christians, the subjects of Christ’s Kingdom, don’t lord over others, but serve from beneath.

Most of us are familiar with the Lord’s Prayer. If we didn’t learn it at school or recite it at church, we’ve undoubtedly heard it in popular films. But there is a danger with being familiar with a thing. Oftentimes, familiarity can be mistaken for understanding. We might be able to say, “Thy Kingdom come,” but that’s not the same thing as being able to explain what that really means or how it’s actually achieved.
The coming of Christ’s Kingdom ought to be the hope and prayer of every Christian. We want God’s will to be done on earth, just as it is in heaven. But how does that happen? How does the Kingdom of Heaven advance on earth? Is it through the power of military conquest? Are we to subdue Christ’s enemies with threats, force, and violence? Or is it achieved another way?
While we are commanded to pray for the advancement of Christ’s Kingdom here on earth, we are never instructed to further that Kingdom with the means through which the kings and rulers of this world advance their own. In fact, the exact opposite is the case.

When the mother of James and John attempted to secure for her sons the second and third most powerful positions in Christ’s Kingdom, Matthew tells us that the other disciples became indignant (Matt. 20:24). So, Jesus gathered them together and informed them that they had the entire system backwards. They weren’t reflecting the nature of Christ’s Kingdom, but rather, that of the non-Christian world.

Jesus called them to him and said, “You know that the rulers of the nations lord it over them, and their great ones exercise authority over them. It shall not be so among you. But whoever would be great among you must be your servant, and whoever would be first among you must be your slave, even as the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”
Matthew 20:25-28
There are to be certain characteristics of those within Christ’s Kingdom, and those characteristics stand in stark contrast to the way the world operates in its rebellion against God. Unlike the kingdoms of this world, Christ’s Kingdom does not advance through top-down enforcement, but bottom-up servitude. Christians, the subjects of Christ’s Kingdom, don’t lord over others, but serve from beneath.
In other words, the Kingdom of God does not advance through threats of physical violence. We’re not here talking about self-defence (Ex. 22:2-3), a just war (Ex. 15:3), or the civil authority’s responsibility to wield the sword in restraining evil (Rom. 13:3-4), but whether the church — or specifically, the Christian — grows the kingdom at the edge of a sword.
Now, it’s important at this point that we don’t understand this to mean passivism, or defeatism, or retreatism. This is the repugnant and unbiblical approach of cowards. Christians are “more than conquerors” and as such, we have no business waving the white flag (Rom. 8:37). We don’t forfeit the battle. We don’t flee the fight. Instead, we take up arms, just as the Holy Spirit commands us to.
In Ephesians 6, the Apostle Paul urges Christians to dress for battle, by putting on the “whole armour of God.” We are to do this, not to fight against other people, but in order to withstand the “schemes of the devil.”
“For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over the present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.”
Ephesians 6:12
For the Apostle, our chief enemy is spiritual, and as such, our armour ought to be the kind that can withstand his assaults. Paul tells us in the verses that follow, what this “armour of God” looks like.
“Stand, therefore, having fastened on the belt of truth, and having put on the breastplate of righteousness, and, as shoes for your feet, having put on the readiness given by the gospel of peace. In all circumstances, take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming darts of the evil one; and take the helmet of salvation…”
Ephesians 6:14-17a
The subjects of Christ’s Kingdom have an obligation to dress for warfare, the most deadly and effective kind.

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The Woman Caught in Adultery and Lessons in “Piously” Breaking God’s Law

When the scribes and Pharisees brought the woman before Jesus and accused her of committing adultery, there were no eyewitnesses to act, evident by Jesus’ response: “Let him who is without sin among you be the first to throw a stone at her.” This was not Jesus’ effort to dismiss or lower the standard of the Law, but to maintain it. The very next verse in Deuteronomy 17 stipulates that the first stone to be hurled is to come from the hand of those who testified as witnesses to the act.

What is the relationship between Christians and the Law of Moses? It is a question that dates back to the formation of the early church (Acts 15:24-29), but to this day, many believers still aren’t sure what they’re supposed to do with the first five books of the Bible. Often, they’re entirely avoided. Sometimes they’re treated like off milk that passed its expiration date with the coming of Jesus. Other times, they’re presented as cruel, harsh, and unforgiving rules, reflective of the barbaric and uncivilised era from which they emerged.
Whatever the case may be, portraying the Law as anything short of “holy, righteous, just, and good” is to present the Law in a way that is contrary to the New Testament (Rom. 7:12). Jesus, the Apostle Paul, and James all summed up the Law in a word: Love (Mk. 12:31; Rom. 13:9; Jam. 2:8; cf. Lev. 19:18). In other words, in the New Testament, “love” was not some arbitrary sense of affirmation or positive vibes. Love was a summary of God’s Law.
To love God “with all your heart, soul, and strength,” was to love him in accordance with the commandments he had given (Deut. 6:4-5; 10:12-13). To love your neighbour as yourself, was to treat your neighbour the way in which God prescribed in his statutes, and to do so from the heart (Lev. 19:18-19). To relax even one of the least of the commandments was to love God and man less than God required (Matt. 5:19). It was to act presumptuously by elevating yourself to the level of the Law Giver. In fact, the preservation of love was so important in Israel that violations were regarded as a crime punishable by death (Deut. 17:12-13).

It is at this point that many modern Christians recoil. The Law required capital punishment for sins that our culture does not. And sometimes, it demanded death for sins that our culture celebrates. To affirm the Law as “love” is perhaps the most counter-cultural thing you can do. It could cost you your family and friends, your career, and in some instances, your freedom. Wouldn’t it be easier, for the self-preserving Christian, to pretend God’s Law was no longer relevant? To opt rather for a definition of “love” that’s defined more so by current social sentiments than by Scripture? After all, didn’t Jesus dismiss the harsh demands of the Law for the higher road of compassion and forgiveness? That is what we’re told.

It’s rare that the subject of God’s Law and it’s relevance today is discussed without someone making an appeal to John 8:3-11. The incident of the woman caught in adultery is often raised as evidence that Jesus disobeyed the Law demanding death to establish a new “Law of Love” that operates, at times, contrary to the Law. Arguments regarding the account’s placement in Scripture aside — let’s just assume it belongs here — a question worth considering is whether the incident demonstrates an example of Jesus, at best, lowering the standard of the Law, and at worst, directly violating it.
It’s an important question to consider, as our understanding of this will determine whether we believe Jesus transgressed God’s Law, thereby sinning, and consequently rendering himself an unfit sacrificial substitute for our sins (1 Jn. 3:4; Heb. 9:14). Of course, this would be at odds with the witness of the New Testament which tells us that Jesus, who was born under the Law (Gal. 4:4-5), never transgressed the Law, nor could he be found guilty of any sin (Jn. 8:46). This is a claim that the Apostles also reaffirm in the epistles (2 Cor. 5:21; Heb. 4:15; 1 Peter 2:22; 1 Jn. 3:5). So, if Jesus did not sin, then he did not transgress the Law. How then do we make sense of his interaction with the woman caught in adultery?
The fact that Jesus never sinned by transgressing the Law is highlighted by the scribes and the Pharisees who were “searching for a charge that they could bring against him.” In John 8:6, we’re told that Jesus’ opponents wanted to put him to the test. So, they brought before him a woman who had been caught in the act of adultery. The scribes and Pharisees then said to Jesus, according to the Law, “Moses commanded us to stone such women. So, what do you say?” The scribes and Pharisees were appealing to Leviticus 20:10, which states: “If a man commits adultery with the wife of his neighbor, both the adulterer and the adulteress shall surely be put to death.”
The scribes and Pharisees were setting a trap for Jesus. Under Roman rule, the Jews were not at liberty to put anyone to death (Jn. 18:31; Babylonian Talmud, Sanhedrin 1.1; 7.2; Palestinian Talmud, Sanhedrin 41a). If Jesus upheld the Law of Moses, he would be violating the law of Rome.
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Nobody Wants to Play by the West’s Made-Up Rules

The West may learn too late that there are only two options before us: Christ or chaos. Once we abandon God, as Dostoevsky warned, everything becomes permissible. And when everything is permissible, we lose, not only any meaningful basis for evaluating the behaviour of other cultures, but any effective means of slowing the moral decline of our own.

Since FIFA announced Qatar would be hosting the 2022 World Cup, the international football association has copped a world of criticism. Western nations, in particular, have threatened to boycott the tournament and its sponsors in protest of the predominantly Muslim country’s rejection of “Progressive” ideology.
No shortage of opinion pieces have been penned lamenting ‘human rights abuses’ in Qatar, where homosexuality is illegal and punishable by up to three years in prison. Social media has been flooded with calls for players to boycott the competition, or at the very least, sport gay-pride uniforms or LGBTQAI+ symbolism alongside their national emblems.

In a mark of revolt, the U.S. men’s national team ditched their red, white, and blue crest, for the rainbow flag. A similar theme was adopted for their Qatar-based training facilities and press room backdrop. Other nations have threatened to do the same.

Amid all the pearl-clutching, however, is a glaring assumption that Qatar is in violation of some universal moral standard to which they must be held accountable. The problem is, the West is no longer able to coherently identify the moral standard they’re trying to impose on the world. So, like spoilt children, they stomp their feet and issue threats because the other kids don’t want to play by their made-up rules.
Non-Western nations know it better than most Westerners. To undermine, challenge, or criticise Qatar’s culture, you must first assume a moral standard of which their society falls short. You must assume a measure of ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ that Qatar is guilty of violating. But what is that moral standard and who gets to define it for the rest of the world?
For decades, so-called Progressives have insisted that morality is defined by the culture. After all, this is what the term “Progressive” implies. But if morality is defined at a social level, then what basis does one society have in criticising another? What ground is there for imposing one culture’s moral standard on a society that has developed their own? There can be no logical justification for this unless moral relativism is rejected, and a transcendent moral standard assumed – a standard to which one culture reflects more than the other.
It’s no good, at this point, to suggest that morality is democratically defined, or that ‘rights’ are determined by the consensus of the majority. This would mean “Progressives” could never condemn as ‘immoral’ anything previous generations deemed morally acceptable.
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When “Gospel-Centeredness” Becomes a Cover for Idolatry

How are we to define love? Love is not love, in the sense that it is wielded against the church today. God is love, and that means our definitions of God and love are subject to God’s self-revelation. Not some of it. Not just the red letters. All of it.

Love is love. Has there ever been a more ambiguous, redundant, and meaningless phrase so frequently uttered by the human tongue? Yet this simple, three-word slogan has proved to be one of the most effective weapons brandished against traditional, Christian norms in society today.
The phrase has been the battle cry of almost every successful “equality” campaign to advance across the Western world and has since become the default response to any, and all, resistance to the progressive rebranding of family, marriage, and sexuality.

It’s a powerful maxim, but its potency isn’t to be found in the phrase itself. “Love is love” makes as novel an argument as asserting, “Water is water.” Nobody is going to dispute such a self-evident claim.

Rather, the power of the argument is found in the fault of those it’s wielded against. Simply put, the phrase exploits the weakness of those who lack a clear, objective standard by which to measure what constitutes love. Namely, those who have disconnected love from its biblical definition.
That this argument has been so useful to the progressive cause in stamping out Christian opposition only demonstrates how widespread this problem is. For decades, the church has, through ignorance or malice, subverted the Christian standard by substituting the biblical definition for a vague, subjective, Gnostic alternative.
As a result, love has essentially been reduced to nothing more than a four-letter acronym: “WWJD?” The loving response is now whatever we personally imagine Jesus doing in any hypothetical moral dilemma. Today, Marcion effectively lives on through, what has been dubbed, ‘red-letter Christianity’ and those who think the Old Testament has passed its ‘used by’ date.
With this mindset now firmly fixed within the church, there’s little wonder why we have militant Christian camps on all sides of every social issue currently up for debate. Love no longer has any definitive boundaries, parameters, or borders. If a thing seems loving, it is loving.
Consequently, whatever is “deemed” love must be accepted as love, because, after all, love is love. What many are yet to realize is that by forfeiting the biblical definition of love, the church has surrendered any meaningful involvement in this debate.
Without a firmly fixed criterion, how could anyone consistently argue that anything labelled “love” fails to meet a non-existent standard? Without a detailed definition of what love is, who can criticize, scrutinize, or demonize anything that anyone else experiences as “love”?
That was the argument of an Australian Anglican Bishop who recently dismissed the idea that Jesus strictly defined marriage as a union between a man and a woman.
A major news outlet in Australia quoted the bishop who claimed the governing rule of the Gospels was Christ’s love for all people. However, according to the bishop, this is supposedly so vague, and so obscure, that we cannot possibly say who is and is not “fulfilling the teaching of Jesus and his ruling principle of love.”
Although conclusions on this specific subject may vary, the bishop’s assumptions are reflective of a broader sentiment within the church. The trend is to disconnect ‘red-letter ethics’ from the rest of the moral imperatives in the Bible. It effectively ‘unhitches’ Gospel love from its broader definition, making it impossible to clearly define or challenge, especially when it comes to affirming those things the world lauds, but the Bible abhors.
As such, concepts such as “love” now float in obscurity. This is largely why Christians have had difficulty trying to explain why ‘red-letter love’ doesn’t resemble what the progressives are demanding. Without a broader, objective definition, we must conclude with the bishop, that no one could possibly say what is and is not “love.” If it is deemed love, it must be accepted as love and considering Jesus loved love, we ought to love it too, because once again, love is love. Right?!
Of course, Jesus had a lot to say about love. Love is an essential aspect of the Christian life, so much so, that the absence of love may be considered the evidence of an absence of true and saving faith in God (1 Jn 3:10, 4:20). It is the external identifier by which “all people” will know who is and is not following Jesus (Jn 13:35). But if love is identifiable, then it must look a certain way and not another. It must be recognizable, distinguishable, and definable.
So, how then does the New Testament define love? What are the boundaries, parameters, and borders necessary for defining anything?
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